1. Field
The invention is in the field of apparatus for extruding composite food products, for example, consolidating and shaping normally unattractive and commercially unacceptable pieces of flesh and fat into attractive and commercially acceptable meat shapes.
2. State of the Art
Loaves and other shapes of meat materials have long been prepared by manually arranging different meat pieces together, with or without binders, and by consolidating such pieces under pressure to form a product which is commercially attractive and can be sliced. Some attempts have been made heretofore to simulate cuts of meat, such as bacon slabs by this technique. Also, ground or emulsified meat and fat mixtures have been extruded and cut to simulate known commercial cuts. Various types of apparatus have been developed heretofore for extruding different materials, such as soap of different colors, and consolidating the different materials as a final unitary product.
3. Objective
The present invention has as its primary objective to eliminate time consuming and expensive manual fabrication of commercially acceptable meat shapes having desirable striation of different meat or meat and fat characteristics, especially simulated bacon slabs, by apparatus that effectively accomplishes the purpose and can be quickly and easily disassembled for cleaning and reassembled for further use.